Tryptophane is an essential aminoacid which frequently represents the limiting aminoacid in fodders and mixed fodders. Since tryptophane can be obtained by alkaline hydrolysis of tryptophanehydantoin, this synthesis has great significance.
There are already known an entire series of processes for the production of tyrptophanehydantoin, which ultimately start from either acrolein or acrylonitrile and proceed via several steps. The known processes, however, throughout are not completely satisfactory because they either require the use of difficult accessible reactants or assistants or give in at least one reaction step only relatively low conversions.